University students search for job opportunities at a large-scale recruitment fair for science and engineering universities in Harbin, China, on March 24, 2026.
Thanh Chin | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Hello, I’m Evelyn. I am writing to you from Beijing. Welcome to the latest edition of The China Connection. This is a concise summary of what I have seen and heard from local companies.
Today, I’m diving into the AI job market on both sides of the Pacific. Silicon Valley is preparing for nighttime layoffs, but is the situation in China getting any better?
big story
as oracle The impact of artificial intelligence on employment at Chinese companies appears to be more muted for now, as the company becomes the latest U.S. tech giant to make large-scale layoffs.
There are several underlying reasons, starting with differences in government systems. Unlike the United States, Beijing has a national employment target that puts the urban unemployment rate at about 5.5%.
Alex Lu, founder of LSY Consulting, said in addition to these state-driven mandates, Chinese companies are not laying off as many people as their U.S. counterparts because labor costs are low in China.
The average monthly salary for in-demand algorithm engineers was 20,035 yuan (about $2,900), online recruitment platform Zhilian revealed last month.
Starting salaries are considered decent in China, but in U.S. dollars, it’s the equivalent of about $35,000 a year. Salaries in the US are nearly 10 times lower than in Silicon Valley, even though taxes and the cost of living are much higher.
A “Level 2” software engineer who earns a base salary of about $300,000 in the United States will see his salary cut by 50% if he moves to China, according to a human resources manager at a Silicon Valley startup. Baidu And TikTok. She requested anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to the media in her current role.
“Two markets are competing for the same people,” she says.
But for Chinese nationals living in the U.S., sudden layoffs also threaten their immigration status, he said, noting that many engineers are choosing to return to China because it is difficult to get another job in the U.S. to maintain residency requirements.
However, the transition is not always smooth. For those who have spent much of their time in corporate America, China’s long working hours and competitive environment may come as a shock.
Market differences
While work-from-home policies took off in the United States after the pandemic, companies in China have tended to ask their employees to work from the office as much as possible. There’s also a cultural aspect where many business leaders focus on overseeing large in-person teams and assistants.
Tina Chow, founder of marketing startup Boomfluence.ai, said engineers at Chinese companies typically have a broader range of tasks than those at comparable U.S. tech giants, making it difficult to fully replace their roles with AI. She is based in Beijing and travels to San Francisco about once a quarter.
Zhou added that many Chinese companies have more employees working not only in engineering but also in marketing and customer affairs.
That’s not to say that AI-related layoffs aren’t affecting Chinese companies. alibaba It reported a more than 30% decline in its headcount, which was due to business changes aimed at prioritizing AI efforts.
tencentHowever, the company revealed that its total number of employees increased slightly last year. Huawei announced that its research and development department had 114,000 employees as of December, up from 113,000 in the same period last year.
Current business structures also limit the impact of AI. LSY’s Lu pointed out that Chinese companies are not as digitally advanced as they are in the United States, where enterprise software is more widely used.
For example, he said that despite OpenClaw’s recent rise in popularity in China, it is a product for personal productivity rather than enterprise grade.
Still, AI remains a hot topic for Chinese parents, who have long worried about their children’s educational and career success.
Zhang Xuefeng, a widely followed education influencer who passed away last month, said in a December video that children as early as sixth grade should start learning about AI and pay attention to related opportunities such as engineering, robotics and chips.
Chinese policymakers also face the challenge of striking a balance between supporting growth and technological innovation. Despite the overall unemployment rate in urban areas hovering around 5%, the youth unemployment rate has remained in the mid to high double digits for the past few years.
Central bank advisor Huang Yiping told reporters on Tuesday that China must pursue high-tech development to achieve economic growth, stressing that AI innovation should prioritize human needs.
—CNBC’s Matthew Chin contributed to this report.
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